On the question of the origin of legends about Melusine and Madame White Snake

Abstract

This paper examines the origins of two legends that are close in structure and content: the Western European tale of Melusine and the Chinese tale of the White Snake. The author accepts Ding Naitong's conclusion about the genetic link between the ancient story of the taming of a shape-shifting empousa (witch or lamia) by Apollonius of Tyana in the 3rd century biography written by Lucius Flavius Philostratus and a) late medieval Chinese tales of the White Snake, beginning with the story of Feng Menlong in the 17th century, and b) Western European stories of marriages with demonic women from the 12th and 13th centuries, including Walter Map’s Henno cum dentibus. On this basis, and with the help of additional data, mainly a fragment of Nizami’s Iskandar-nāmeh and two stories from Hong Mai’s (1123–1202) collection Yijian zhi (“Records of Yi Jian”), an attempt has been made to clarify the relationship between all these plots, as well as between them and the Melusine legend. The article raises the question of a possible connection between the figure of Xu Xuan, who was the protagonist of Feng Menglong’s tale, and Apollonius of Tyana as a character in a mythological narrative.